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A PLEA FOR STUDY 

AN 

ORATION 

BEFORE 

THE LITERARY SOCIETIES 

OF 

YALE COLLEGE, 

AUGUST 19, 1845. 



GEORGE W. BETHUNE, 

Minister of the Third Reformed Dutch Church of Philadelphia. 



PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETIES. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

JOHN C. CLARK, PRINTER, 60 DOCK STREET. 

1845. 



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Yale University, Aug. 20th, 1845, 
Sir, 

In accordance with a joint resolution passed by the three Literary 
Societies of Yale College, the undersigned would express to you the 
sincere thanks of the members thereof for the very able and instruc- 
tive Oration which you pronounced before them yesterday, and re- 
spectfully solicit a copy of the same for publication. 
Your obedient servants, 

L. E. WALES, 
W. S. EAKIN, 

Committee of the Calliopean. 

GEORGE CANNING HILL, 
H. T. STEELE, 

Committee of the Linonian. 

THOS. KENNEDY, 
C. H. TRASK, 

Committee of the Brothers in Unity. 



Philadelphia, September 1st, 1845. 
Gentlemen, 

I am happy to learn that my attempt to serve the Societies whom 
you represent, on the 19th ultimo, was acceptable to them. It was 
my wish to defend Study, particularly of the Classics, against objec- 
tions sometimes urged by honest, though mistaken, religious persons; 
and, also, to offer the student such counsel as I felt myself warranted 
in giving, from my own experience. For the same reasons, I cheer- 
fully comply with the request to permit the publication of the Address, 
though in style and structure it can scarcely be called an Oration, ex- 
cept through your courtesy. I have added a few notes and refer- 
ences, on the principle of doing as I would be done by, as I always 
thank an author for putting me on the track of his reading, that I 
may, if inclined, follow it myself. 

With my best wishes for the welfare of your several Societies, and 
my best thanks for your own personal attentions to myself, 

I have the honour to be, 
Gentlemen, 
Your obedient servant, 

GEO. W. BETHUNE. 

Messrs. L. E. Wales, H. T. Steele, 

W. S. Eakin, Thos. Kennedy, 

Geo. Canning Hill, C. H. Trask. 



ORATION. 



Gentlemen, 

Rising, at your flattering request, to speak before 
such an assemblage, as The Literary Societies of 
Yale College, your orator adopts, with all their 
force, the earnest words of Ringelbergius : — " Happy 
young men, trained from very childhood, under the 
best masters, in various learning, to whom belong 
the blooming cheek, the pliant limb, a hope of many 
years, and an unworn energy, would that I could 
share the freshness of your morning, and seek, with 
a vigour like yours, those heights of knowledge, 
which now, from early neglect, are beyond my 
reach ! Vain are my regrets. Let me solace them 
by exhorting you to persevere in the difficult, but 
honourable labours of a studious life, labours whose 
success is certain, as their rewards are glorious."* 

Our discourse will, therefore, be upon 

STUDY; 

a theme beyond his powers, whose distinguished 
office it is to address you; yet, inspiring courage 

* I. Fortii Ringelbergii Lib. De Ratione Studii. 



from this classical atmosphere, he feels sure, in his 
well-meant efforts, of a courteous sympathy. Under 
the shadow of your venerable University, founded by 
ancient piety and edified by the good of many gene- 
rations, crowded by aspirants to scholarship from 
every part of our wide confederacy, and illustrated 
by the lives of professors as eminent for every virtue 
as they are excellent in every science, the most hum- 
ble lover of Christian learning may bring his tribute 
to a cause, identified with the name of Yale. 

But do they, who have been blessed by the liberal 
nurture of your alma mater, need incitement to pur- 
sue study so delightfully begun? Is not the day, 
on which they receive her parting blessing, rightly 
named a Commencement, because then, obeying her 
last affectionate words, they commence, baculum in 
manu, those higher walks of truth, for whose steep 
ascents she has carefully disciplined their growing 
faculties ? Can we think it possible, that any, who 
have here known the pleasures pf intellect, will ever 
be seduced by the earthward and imbruting tempta- 
tions of a vulgar world ? 

These doubts have a melancholy answer from the 
past; for by far the greatest part of those, whose 
advantages should have made them lights to man- 
kind, shining brighter and brighter, are lost in dis- 
graceful obscurity, become slaves of the mine, mere 
delvers after gain, or drag their way through life 
mortally tainted with sloth, the leprosy of soul. 



A college course may be compared to the fabled 
regions below. Many feel themselves chained down 
by iron rules, the vulture impatience gnawing at 
their liver; or are whirled round, like Ixion, by a 
routine of unwilling exercises; or pour lessons into 
memories, leaky as the sieves of the Danaides; or 
strive in vain to taste enjoyments, which tantalize 
the appetite of their feeble minds; or, most indus- 
triously, 

" With many a weary step and many a groan," 

heave up the mass of their accumulating tasks until 
they reach a bachelor's degree, to let it run down 
again, and to run down after it, congratulating them- 
selves over Sisyphus, that they may stay at the bot- 
tom. A fortunate few find here an Elysium, where 
they hold high converse with the mighty dead, and 
emerge, like iEneas, wise from their counsels, to lay 
the foundation of an influence more enduring than 
"eternal Rome." Such spirits, at least, will listen 
to an advocate of Study. 

Study, in its wide meaning, signifies, Zeal in ac- 
quiring knowledge of any kind, by any method; but, 
leaving those, more conversant with them, to recom- 
mend other sciences, our plea is for Letters, espe- 
cially, Letters which reveal the experience, the taste, 
and the mind of antiquity. 

Study abounds in religious uses. It is a scruple 



of a sickly conscience, that our immediate duties are 
so many, as to forbid us time for such occupation. 
The true end of life is preparation for eternity, and 
religion ought to have our supreme regard. But 
what is religion ? Is it not the study of God, of our 
fellow creatures and of ourselves, and the intelligent 
practice of our duties to all? God is our best 
Teacher, and how does he instruct us ? He has not, 
in his book, taught us only of Himself, nor confined 
the text to mere statements of doctrine, bare pre- 
cepts and direct promises. The Scriptures are full 
of man's history, the strange workings of the human 
heart in the conduct of nations and individuals, the 
miserable consequences of departure from primeval 
religion, and the peaceful results of righteousness. 
It is not presumption to inquire after God, for " the 
knowledge of the Holy is understanding;" but he has 
taught us, also, that man is the proper study of man. 
Whatever exhibits human nature, shows us our- 
selves. 

The style of the Scriptures is not bare and 
meagre. Simplicity of narrative, pathos and gran- 
deur of description, eloquence, argument, philosophy, 
poetry, imagery, apothegm, maxim, proverb, are all 
there; and each inspired writer has a genius, with 
its correspondent manner, peculiar to himself. Study 
of the Bible awakens a taste for letters, and sanc- 
tions by infallible example, a cultivation of those arts 



9 

which the scholar loves for the delight and power 
they give him. 

God teaches us by his works. He has not formed 
them after the narrow scheme of a misnomered utili- 
tarianism. There are the rugged, the barren, and 
the dreary; bat how far excelling in number and 
extent, are the graceful, the changeful, the wonderful 
and the bright ! How lavish has he been of trees, 
and shrubs, and herbs, and flowers, moulding their 
anatomy and painting their leaves with infinite skill ! 
Mountain and valley, hill and dale and plain, forest 
and meadow, brook and river and lake and sea, 
combine their contrasts to adorn the fruitful earth 
for the dwelling of its innumerable tribes. Above 
us, the clouds, dark, fleecy or gorgeous, of every 
shape, sweep over the face of heaven, or hang 
around the horizon, or, passing away, leave the blue 
vault magnificent with the garniture of sun and 
moon and planet and constellation. They all have 
their uses; but is their beauty, with our faculty to 
perceive and to feel it, of no use; an extravagance 
of the Creator, a profuseness of bounty, from which 
we must abstain in a self-denial more prudent than 
the kindness of God? Let the cold, dull plodder, 
who, intent on his creeping steps, fears to look up 
and delight himself in that which God delights in, 
study the lyrics of David, the rhapsodies of holy 
prophets, and the illustrated sermons of his Lord. 

The greatest divine work within our observation 



10 

is man ; man is most wonderful in his soul, and Let- 
ters are the development of the human soul by its 
own actings. They open to us a world, a universe, 
more vast than material creation, not the less in- 
structive, because the free attributes of the moral 
creature are permitted to modify the original eco- 
nomy. The evil of man is his own, his perverted 
passions and calamitous errors of theory and prac- 
tice; but the goodness, the wisdom, and power of 
man, is the manifestation of God in his creature, and 
thus does the operation of evil itself, assist us to 
know the infallibility of that Supreme Will, whence 
no evil could ever emanate; which is the principal 
lesson of Scriptures, written by "holy men of old as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Every fact, 
discovered in the aggregate experience of all former 
times, confirms the testimony of revelation to the 
necessity of that piety, which God has pronounced 
our highest good. 

As we read the classic pages of poet, orator, his- 
torian and philosophical inquirer, we are surprised 
by a. beauty, sweetness and sublimity, far more ex- 
quisite than any external things, which refine and 
elevate our spiritual perceptions. If it be not denied 
us to gather the perishing flowers, to hear the music 
and contemplate the scenery, which God prepares 
for our senses, that we may derive from them plea- 
sure and advantage; may we not enjoy with profit 
the bloom, the melody, the grace, the tenderness, 



11 

the incomparable grandeur and illimitable range of 
thought, which distinguishes man from grosser being, 
and admits him to an adoring communion with the 
Father of Spirits? 

There is a sphere of life promised to the Christian, 
where matter has no place, and, by an inscrutable 
mystery, the bodies of the redeemed are etherealized 
into spiritual substance; where exist those ideal re- 
alities, of which sensible things are but the fleeting 
shadows ; and truth, and joy, and love, and praise, 
are known, and felt, and uttered, by thought alone, 
unseen, intangible, unheard, as the essence of God 
and the souls of his happy children. In that deep 
silence harmonies are ever rolling; over those invi- 
sible regions eternal beauty is outspread, and there, 
untrammelled by the impediments of matter, spirits 
hold fellowship with spirits, in an activity so pure 
and free, that inspiration has described it by perfect 
Rest. 

The outward engagements, which religion de- 
mands of us here, are, in their place and degree, a 
discipline preparatory to heaven ; but we cannot ful- 
fil them aright, nor is our education progressive, ex- 
cept as we learn to free our souls from the degra- 
dation of sense, by uplifting them to the world of 
thought; and find there a vigour and satisfaction, 
independent of all lower things. This is the work 
of Study. When we bend over the volume, a mira- 
culous power suspends the laws, which separate us 



12 

from the distant and the past. The scholar from 
far-off lands sits at our side; the sages of far an- 
tiquity live again in their deathless words ; they 
speak a silent language, whose tones shall stir the 
hearts of generations long to come. O then it is 
that we feel ourselves to be immortal; citizens of an 
imperishable universe, and, yielding reason, staggered 
by the vastness of her destiny, to the stronger virtue 
of faith, return to walk through earth, pilgrims 
whose aim is a better country, the paradise of the 
soul. 

But some may ask, Why study particularly the 
ancients, when we have in modern learning all the 
advantages of their labours, increased and corrected 
by researches under the light of Christianity? 

The objection would be of more force, if the 
moderns had always sought to rectify, by evan- 
gelical assistance, the errors of antiquity. Unhap- 
pily, however, since the early time when professed 
rhetoricians and teachers of philosophy became 
fathers and doctors of the church, there has been 
a strong tendency to engraft upon the true and 
living vine of Christ's planting, subtleties and ab- 
stractions from the Grecian and Egyptian schools. 
Men, converted to the new faith in middle life, re- 
tained the bent and methods of philosophising, ac- 
quired under masters who knew not of Jesus ; nor 
could the mind of the world be turned readily out of 
channels, in which it had flowed for ages. An acci- 



13 

dental similarity of some terms in the apostolical 
writings to those of the philosophers, and an imagi- 
nary identity between some Academic theories and 
certain Christian doctrines, with an abuse of the Aris- 
totelian dialectics, contributed largely to the adultera- 
tion of that wisdom which came directly from above, 
pure, original and unique. To this day, indeed now 
more than for centuries, Plato and Plotinus are made 
interpreters of the sacred epistles ; wild, if not pro- 
fane dreams of the Emanative system, at utter va- 
riance with the Bible, which declares all but God to 
have been created, are enthusiastically advocated 
from the pulpit, as well as the press; nay, the stoic 
scheme of reproduction after the fiery close of a 
Providential cycle, is more than quoted in supposed 
illustration of literal prophecy. We are often star- 
tled by the walking ghosts of long buried notions 
from the limbo of heathenism, not the less recognisa- 
ble by the scholar, because wearing a Geneva cloak, 
an Oxford surplice, or a cross-embroidered vestment. 
On the other hand, the astute infidel, encouraged by 
this actual, though unintentional, vailing of Divine 
instruction to the competency of unaided reason, 
has, by a pernicious skill, cited the past to prove the 
unnecessariness of Revelation for the knowledge of 
that, which God only has made, or could make, mani- 
fest. Thus, by the folly of its friends, who have lite- 
rally "gone down to Egypt for help," and the bold 
cunning of its enemies, who strike strongly against 



14 

the polemic, that has flung away the shield of faith 
and the sword of the Spirit to wield weapons of 
man's forging, the Gospel is put in a false position, 
from which no human means, under God, can extri- 
cate it, but sanctified learning. 

There is not one modern theory, which has 
not been constructed, as the later Romans build 
their houses, with materials taken from ancient 
ruins; every great metaphysical dispute, now agi- 
tated, has a source more early than history can 
reach ; nor is it possible to reason correctly back- 
ward, through the confusion of multiplied eclecti- 
cisms, to the errors which those, who, departing 
from the faith given by God to man at the begin- 
ning, and " professing to be wise, became fools, 7 ' 
have mingled with that primeval revelation. There 
is (blessed be the Almighty Comforter!) a divine 
witness in the Gospel itself, more convincing than 
any corroborative testimony; but, except we deem 
valueless the confirmation of experience, and leave 
all the results of past inquiry to the perversions of 
skeptics, we must study the learning of antiquity, 
before we can fairly vindicate the necessity and ex- 
cellence of that system, which we have received from 
the Holy Ghost. It is, when, after thorough search, 
we fail to discover in ancient books, except the Bi- 
ble, a logical argument for the Being of God or the 
immortality of the soul, stronger than a general tradi- 



15 

tionary notion;* or any scheme of philosophy, which 
could account for the existence of matter, antagonist 
to spirit, and limiting even the will of the One they 
called Supreme ;t and far back as we go, we see 
clearer and yet more clear traces of an early God- 
taught knowledge, (fragments of which believed in, 
though unproved, because, as Plato says, they were 
learned by children at the breast,f from mothers and 
nurses among barbarians as well as Greeks, consti- 
tute whatever is genuine in their elaborate and laby- 
rinthine speculations,) that we are ready to bow with 
a more humble trust at the feet of the Crucified, who 
made all things and upholds them, revealed life and 
immortality by the radiance which shone through his 
broken tomb, and now, as at first he commanded 
light to shine out of darkness, shines in the hearts of 
his people, the brightness of his Father's glory and 
the character of invisible God. 

* Ut pono, firmissimum hoc aferri videtur cun Deos esse credamus, quod 
nulla gens tam fera, nemo omnium tam sit immanis, cujus mentem non im- 
buerit Deorum opinio; et seq. — Tusc. Quaes. ], c. 13. 

t Citations would be superfluous (had we room) to show, that no scheme 
of ancient philosophy made matter otherwise than eternal. Matter could 
not be accounted for by emanation from The ONE, and, therefore, it was 
impossible for them to consider it entirely subject to His will. Creation, 
in our sense of the term, out of nothing, is not to be found in any of 
their conjectures. Here is a radical distinction from the doctrine of the 
Scriptures, which renders the Platonic theory utterly irreconcilable with our 
faith. Should any one be disposed to quote the Timseus against us, he will 
find himself sufficiently answered by Brucker. Hist. Phil. Vol. I. p. 6?6-7. 

X ■ . . . vruQi/Atvoi toi; y.vboiz, out ik vtotv irtuSm tti h yahu^t Tgt<^oy.iyoi <rpo<pZv 

Tl YIKOVW MCI (AHTigCHy . v.. t. \. NOMO], I. 



16 

It is only by a careful study of the ancients them- 
selves that we can know how poor were their best 
thoughts of divinity j how dim and comfortless their 
expectations after death ; how various and conflict- 
ing their definitions of the right and the good ; how 
cold their morality, which, merging all affection in 
wisdom, accounted the poor man, the labourer, and 
the uncultivated, as profane, mere slaves of the ini- 
tiated ; how insufficient their motives to uphold them 
against present temptation; and, at least in one in- 
stance, but that the most available for our purpose 
which could be given, how deep their conviction of 
dependence upon a Teacher from heaven,* to show 
us how to live, and how to pray, and what to hope 
for. Then are we prepared to resist the Platonist, 
who, intoxicated with the poetical romancings of the 
sublime idealist, would persuade us that we are gods, 
knowing good and evil; or, after a contest with him 
upon his own instruments, flay the Marsyas-like 
skeptic, who dares to match his skill against the 
Divine. If the swan of Egina, forsaking the safer 
bosom of his more modest master, never reached by 
his boldest flight the cardinal fact, which a Christian 
child reads in the first verse of his Bible, what worth 
to us can be theories based upon the fable of emana- 
tion ? If an apostle of our Lord has encouraged us 
when we lack wisdom to ask of God, with what pa- 

* Avaynciiov out to-t\ m^tfuintv tea «V vis [xahtj (&; $fi tt^s 6eot/f k&i srgoc dvfigtosroyj 
dWeTo-fia*. k. t. X. AAKJB. AETT. § 22. 



17 

tience can we listen to men, who bid us search and 
find within our sinful, creature souls, a microcosm 
of all ideas ? If Socrates, the best of the ancients, 
while expecting a new revelation, contented himself 
with gathering and separating from the rubbish 
of superstition, the golden particles of truth washed 
down to him by the traditionary stream ; and Aris- 
totle, the greatest, never showed his unequalled sa- 
gacity more than in abstaining altogether from ques- 
tions of religious import; and Cicero, after sitting as 
umpire over a congress of all sects, pronounced the 
atheist's argument most true, hoping against logic 
that religion might be found probable;* how ineffably 
ridiculous is the vanity of men, who, turning their 
backs upon the Sun of Righteousness, which never- 
theless will shine around them, boast that they can 
demonstrate by their puny wit what those giant in- 
tellects could not discover ! 

Were they, who rebuke us for these studies, as in- 
consistent with more active piety, to consider how 
much of our common and most necessary religious 
privileges have been derived, under God, from such 
learning, the tone of their rash and ungrateful crimi- 
nations would be less positive. The very Scriptures, 
which they hold justly to be the fountain of saving 
truth, were written in tongues to them unknown, 
and, at first in scattered pieces, have reached us 

* . . . ita discessimus, ut Velleio Cottse disputatio verior, mihi Balbi ad 
veritatis similitudinem propensior. — De Natura Deorum III. 40. 

C 



18 

through long ages, and, until the art of printing, by 
the uncertain hands of transcribers. They have 
many passages, which, had we no acquaintance with 
the history, customs, opinions and idioms of their 
time, would be utterly inexplicable; so that to trans- 
late them, much more to establish the canon, to 
verify the text and elucidate it fully, demanded, and 
still demands, extensive erudition and severe literary 
discipline. To open the paths of heavenly wisdom 
for the little feet of the Sunday scholar, mountains 
have been levelled and valleys filled up, crooked 
places made straight and rough places plain, by the 
stupendous labours of indefatigable minds, who em- 
ployed the skill and strength which study only 
could give, in preparing the way of the Lord to 
preach his Gospel to the poor. Shall it be lightly 
said, that the hours they spent investigating the se- 
crets of language, comparing the various operations 
of thought, and observing the influence of national 
and individual peculiarities, were wasted; though to 
accomplish themselves for their work, it was neces- 
sary to range through all heathen literature, biogra- 
phy and history, eloquence and philosophy, epic, 
lyric, tragedy and comedy, from the oldest Orphic 
fragment to the memoranda of Gellius, the gossip of 
the Deipnosophists, and that last link in the chain of 
Hermes, the problems of Proclus? With very few 
exceptions (perhaps only one, the glorious old 
dreamer, Bunyan,) since the days of the apostles. 



19 

the servants of God, whatever may have been their 
immediate usefulness, have left an influence upon the 
church and the world lasting and wide in proportion 
as their zeal was seconded by learning. Who will 
challenge the services of Luther, profoundly versed 
in ancient wisdom, and Melancthon (ille Germanise 
SU83 magister, omnis doctrinal prsesidio instructus, 
divinis humanisque Uteris ornatus*), whose eloquent 
exhortations to the study of the classics have accom- 
panied the Augsburg Confession to us; of Calvin 
and Rivet, whose Ciceronian periods enchant the 
scholar as much as their matchless divinity edifies 
the saint; of Zuingle, an editor of Pindar, and Pis- 
cator, a translator of Horace ; of Grotius, teacher of 
all moral science, and the elder Vossius, worthy of 
being named with his great compatriot; of Owen, 
Baxter, and Howe, each thoroughly bred to the use 
of books; of Matthew Henry, whose apt quotations 
show a stretch of reading which, from his modest 
quaintness, we might not otherwise have suspected, 
and Doddridge, whose style betrays early familiarity 
with classic models; of Lardner and Warburton, who 
heaped the spoil of the Gentiles in the temple of the 
Lord, and of many others, not to speak of those in 
our own day and in our own land, honoured alike by 
the erudite and the good ? Was their piety, because 
of their learning, less active or less useful, than 

* Jo. Alberti Oratio de Poesi Theologis utili. 



20 

that of those who cannot take a step in Christian 
duty, but leaning on their help? Can we be wrong 
in attempting to follow their examples? 

Temptations there may be, there are, in a studious 
life, which have led astray many an unhappy mind. 
But where is there not temptation? Is the Christian 
in the counting-house, the work-shop or the field, 
free from it? Does the devil triumph more in the 
retirement of a library than in the squabbles of ec- 
clesiastical councils, where the most empty are al- 
ways the most noisy; or in those mischievous ex- 
citements, like that of Israel before Horeb, when 
impatient to get on, they set up a god of Egypt to 
counterfeit the presence of Jehovah ? A difficult, 
but useful book, is no bad charm to lay those evil 
spirits, who love the dry and desert places of igno- 
rance far more than a well-filled and busy head; and 
if we cannot force out the tempter by reading, we 
may try, as Luther did, what virtue there is in an 
inkstand. A Christian man, with a good thought in 
his brain and a pen in his hand, is more than a 
match for a legion of such, as would drive a swinish 
multitude down a precipice into a sea of absurdity, 
fanaticism or crime. 

Defective as was their knowledge of divine things 
and of physical science (though our pride in that has 
been not a little shaken by recent searches among 
their monuments), it is notorious that we are far be- 
hind the ancients in many other respects. The mo- 



21 

derns have written much upon government, the laws 
of thought, rhetoric and criticism, but their rules and 
examples are chiefly drawn from the standards of 
classic ages; and every faithful student knows by 
experience, how much more can be learned from ac- 
tual conversation with the Greek and Latin master- 
pieces, than from all the manuals which flatter us 
with a promise of easy acquisition. It is to them 
we must go for a large series of experiments, which 
they made in attempting the distribution and balance 
of power, not the less instructive because they were 
so remarkably ignorant of that most philanthropic 
science, Political Economy, which, next to the Gos- 
pel, whose legitimate offspring it is, will do more 
than any thing else for the elevation and fraterniza- 
tion of our race. Their profound and indefatigably 
curious philosophical inquiries anticipated, as we 
said before, every question now vexed, except 
those suggested by the Scriptures. Aristotle's sys- 
tem of exact definition, nice analysis, and direct de- 
monstration, governs the reasoning world. Plato, in 
richness of metaphor, nobleness of diction, and mu- 
sical cadence, has never been approached ; and an 
oration of Demosthenes carefully dissected, will show 
us better how to carry off an audience captive, than 
a thousand lectures on eloquence from scholastic 
chairs. No man should write a history, who has 
not pondered over the intense narrative of Thucy- 
dides; or biography, if he know not the Life of Agri- 



22 

cola almost by heart; or an essay, until familiar with 
those of Seneca, superfluous as they are in antitheti- 
cal conceits. Homer, whom all have emulated, looks 
down from his dateless throne upon every epic ad- 
venturer. Horace, imitator as they say he was of 
Alca^us, has never found a successful rival. Milton 
(whose obligations to the classics a scholar detects 
through all his poetry), Dry den, Pope, Collins, and 
Gray, caught the fire and rhythm of their odes from 
Pindar. The pithy apothegms of Juvenal are our 
common proverbs. Where but in the dramas of 
Shakspeare, who alone lifts his head superior to an- 
cient comparison, can we discover the tender grace 
of Euripides, the chastened grandeur of Sophocles, or 
the inexhaustible wit, facile play of words, and comic 
satire of Aristophanes ? Where, even in Shak- 
speare, is there a conception like the Prometheus or 
Cassandra of iEschylus, who transcends our great 
master of the human heart by transcending the 
sphere of actual humanity ? 

But not to multiply instances, unnecessary before 
this audience, it may be confidently asserted that no 
high excellence in the arrangement or expression of 
thoughts, can be acquired without cultivating the 
ancients. A careful study of their languages is itself 
an education in strength, clearness, and delicacy of 
phrase, not merely because so much of our own has 
been taken from them, that we cannot understand it 
until we understand them, but because of their supe- 



23 

rior mechanism. The Greek is, in fact (with its 
supposed parent, the Sanscrit), the greatest and 
most mysterious achievement of human invention ; 
for not only is its polish, which might be the work 
of progressive refinement, exquisite, but its radical 
principles are perfect in philosophical arrangement. 
He, who knows all things, alone knows how a system 
could have originated in those shadowy ages so ac- 
curate and complete, that the best style of modern 
tongues seems, by its side, rude and unregulated. 
We do not go too far in saying, that it exhibits, 
more fully than any thing else, the relations between 
thought and utterance, and that a thorough acquaint- 
ance with its construction is as necessary to the me- 
taphysician as the critic. 

To this, and, doubtless, springing from the same 
source, the Greeks added an intense love of beauty, 
a keen perception and severe ideas of it, which ren- 
dered their compositions simple and harmonious, yet 
grand or graceful; like their own inimitable sculp- 
tures, whose drapery was managed to reveal a sym- 
metry that needed no decoration to conceal defects, 
but animated, breathing and energetic, from more 
than Promethean fire. Nothing can be more de- 
lightful to a literary mind, nothing more improving, 
than study of their chaste and highly-wrought JEs- 
theticism. Happy is he who can bring skill in their 
art to the manifestation of those heavenly doctrines 
which open the fairest field for its exercise, and are 



24 

never so true as when presented in their own naked 
beauty! It is not the genuine scholar who becomes 
a pedant, nor the true philosopher who tampers with 
revealed certainties; but, while half-taught pretenders 
astound the multitude with sonorous polysyllables, or 
presumptuously venture their crude conjectures, (stig- 
matised by the learned apostle, as " philosophy 
falsely so called,") the man of faith and knowledge 
employs his studious retirement and extensive means 
in distilling from foreign admixtures the waters of 
wisdom, that he may give them to the thirsty soul, 
pure, bright and transparent, as they came out of the 
fountain above. Nothing so much abases that pride 
which seeks self-distinction, as a sincere love of the 
true. Comparison with great ideas teaches us the 
insignificance of our powers, and then exalts us by 
the warranted ambition of securing our own glory 
through a submissive devotion to the glory of truth, 
which is the glory of God. 

From these considerations, it follows that study 
should be governed by an elevated and religious spi- 
rit. Only three motives are allowed to us in any 
pursuit: the honour of the Lord our Creator, the 
well-being of our fellow creatures, and our own im- 
mortal happiness. These are so interlinked as to be 
inseparable. God, by the sanctions of his law and 
Gospel, justifies a regard to our own good, while he 
condemns selfishness, and makes service of our hu- 
man brethren duty to himself, which cannot be loy- 



25 

ally rendered, except we find in it our greatest plea- 
sure. The student, to be successful, must delight in 
his noble task. He will meet with many difficulties 
and disappointments. His toil will be severe and 
increasing. In themselves his trials will give him 
pain. Yet as the peasant sweats for bread, the sol- 
dier bleeds for honour, or the martyr suffers for his 
cause, he encounters and bears them all for the sake 
of the reward before him, until, after some determined 
practice and gratifying successes, he loves the very 
labour, and difficulty only rouses his generous cou- 
rage. No man is fit to be a student unless he has a 
heart for study, a love of the beautiful and great in 
thought, stronger than any other passion, and an en- 
ergy of will undaunted by any encounter. His call- 
ing and destiny are elsewhere. He may, according 
to his capacity, fill some lower place in the social 
economy, but the rank and inheritance of a scholar 
are not for him. Learning is jealous of all rivals, 
and spurns all who are too sluggish, or timid, or sor- 
did, to undertake, dare or sacrifice every thing for 
her sake. 

There are those, who claim to be men of letters, 
and perhaps of some note, who follow study for a 
trade, and make books or teach out of them, as tin- 
men make or pedlers sell the most common utensils, 
but would in a moment fling aside their scholarship, 
such as it is, to take up any handicraft that promised 
better wages. Perhaps we ought not to scourge 

D 



26 

these money-changers from the temple, (though our 
fingers itch for the small cords,) because they may 
be useful in a degree; Providence employs the mean- 
est and most ugly things ; but, certainly, a tinker or 
a pedler, who loves his business, is incomparably 
more worthy of respect, than men who, with such 
advantages of knowledge, appreciate it only by the 
pence it brings them. 

There are those, scarcely less mechanical, who 
lose the end of learning by attention to the minutiae 
of its detail, and see nothing in a classic but its 
words and accents. They will turn without emotion 
from the sobbing sentences in the last page of the 
Phsedon, to luxuriate among the scholia at the bot- 
tom ; or stop short in the prayer of Iphigenia, hang- 
ing on the knees of her father, that they may hunt 
for authorities about the suppliant wreath, to which 
she compares herself so touchingly. They too have 
their uses ; but it is as stone-breakers on the high- 
way of knowledge, or, at best, mere proof readers, 
who, the printers tell us, are more likely to be accu- 
rate the less they feel an author's meaning. 

Others, again, are feverish with impatience to 
shine; and, since the beaten path is too much crowd- 
ed by better men to allow them notoriety, they seek 
it in eccentric and venturesome novelties. Like 
Erostratus, they would fire the most sacred system 
to gain a name, and careless of consequences, abuse 
the gifts of God within them, to set the crowd agape. 



27 

Such men are very mischievous, and the more so the 
more learning they have, as a skilful chemist, if ma- 
lignant enough, would be the most adroit poisoner. 

There are yet those, who eagerly enjoy the plea- 
sures of study without any regard for the advan- 
tage of others ; too intent upon learning to teach, 
and upon reading to write; absorbed from all 
thought of the living in their association with the 
dead. God has given them talent and opportunity 
to store their minds with richest treasures, but in 
miserly niggardliness they keep them locked from 
the world. None are wiser for their knowledge, and 
the Father of lights receives from them no tribute of 
praise. Heavy will be their responsibility in that 
hour, when the guilt of neglecting to do good shall 
be measured by the means granted to accomplish it. 

But the office of the educated is to be benefactors 
of their race. While we love study for its own sake, 
we should love it far more for the sake of the facul- 
ties it gives us to exercise the highest form of benefi- 
cence. Reputation for talent and acquirements, be- 
cause it increases our power, may fairly be desired, 
and, within proper limits, sought. An intellectual 
labourer is not less entitled to remuneration for his 
work, than those who till the earth or ply the loom. 
Whatever in our studies refines our taste, improves 
our manners, or quickens our sensibilities, is to be 
cherished, because, though the effect be not imme- 
diately seen, it prepares us for greater success when 



28 

we attempt to do good. Yet usefulness to man for 
the glory of God, should be the student's ruling pur- 
pose. That alone can maintain in us an unconquer- 
able courage, lift us above the dangerous tempta- 
tions within and around, and, purifying our thoughts 
from selfish and sensual defilement, sanctify our un- 
derstanding for that eternal sphere, where charity 
never fails, though tongues shall cease and know- 
ledge vanish away. The heart, not the reason, is 
the most noble part of the soul. 

It would, however, be a grave mistake to draw 
knowledge only from books. Human nature, in all 
ages, is radically the same. Books help us to un- 
derstand mankind, and intercourse with mankind 
helps us to understand books. A theory, which, 
when read, we think right or wrong, may be proved 
the reverse by a half hour's observation of actual 
life ; as, on the other hand, what the superficial infer 
with ready confidence from a few obvious facts, may 
be utterly opposed by the results of a longer trial, re- 
corded in the histories of the past. The world is a 
busy laboratory, where experiments are constantly 
going on, by which we should try our hypotheses, 
and gather facts for farther induction, else we shall 
be dupes of fantastic speculation, and bring, as 
others have done before us, ridicule upon scholar- 
ship. There is, it is true, much folly in the assump- 
tion of superior judgment, by some who claim to be 
practical men, over those they sarcastically call 



29 

theorists. What were your practical men without 
the aid of theorists? A practical blacksmith may 
make a lightning-rod that saves a house from de- 
struction, but the theorist, Franklin, first showed the 
world how to turn aside the thunderbolts of heaven. 
A practical seaman may easily navigate a ship, but, 
first, Napier gave him logarithms, and Godfrey his 
quadrant, and Bowditch taught him how to use them, 
and older theorists discovered and made plain the 
higher principles. The practical man, on errands of 
business, may shoot along a railway, after the sur- 
veyor and engineer have done their work and the 
locomotive has been made, when, but for them, his 
utmost speed would be in a horse's legs. The illus- 
tration holds good in trade, politics, morals and 
every thing, that affects the comforts or interests of 
the race. Still, without practical observation, the 
most ingenious reasoning is hypothesis that has not 
gained the strength of theory, nor, until put to the 
test, can theory have the value of law. 

It is thus with us, when we would turn our know- 
ledge derived from learning to a useful account. To 
make men better, it is not enough that we demon- 
strate what they ought to be; we must know and 
consider what they are. We may imagine for them 
a state of health, but our business is with them in a 
state of disease, which we must understand before 
we can apply any remedies. Learning gives us a 
wider range of facts than he has, who can look only 



30 

upon his little narrow present, and we have all the 
benefit of former experience in failures or success ; 
but we also need the actual around us. Neither Owen 
nor Fourier is an original genius. Abstract philoso- 
phers of all times have been fond of picturing a per- 
fect social system. Pythagoras made a grand mistake 
in social organization at Crotona, and John Locke 
framed the exploded constitution of South Carolina ; 
nor would any Utopia, from Plato's to Sir Thomas 
Moore's, succeed better. Common sense, that most 
uncommon thing, which is nothing else than a shrewd 
application of ascertained principles to things as they 
are, should temper our philosophical ambition. 

Let us, then, never think a day's study done, un- 
less we have added to our knowledge from reading, 
something more from society and conversation. Our 
nature is social ; and much seclusion from the world 
is unhealthy for mind and heart. A famous scholar 
recommends a companion even in study, that each 
may assist the other with his peculiar gifts or at- 
tainments, and because of the stimulus which mind 
receives from mind when brought into contact. We 
know, by experience, that to talk over a subject with 
a sensible friend is a sure way, not only to acquire 
ideas from him, but to call them up from our own 
resources. The impulse follows us back to our desks, 
and we set ourselves again to our work, as cheer- 
fully as we would to pleasant food after a long walk 
in an agreeable country. But we should not confine 



31 

ourselves to literary associates. The conversation 
of intelligent women, if you can find any not too 
much afraid of being thought "blue stockings" to 
talk, is eminently instructive. They have a delicacy 
of tact, a truth of feeling, and a direct philosophy of 
their own, past our finding out, which the most pro- 
found thinker may listen to and learn. The natural 
outworking of a little child's mind is an excellent 
metaphysical study. So, often, are the rough-hewn 
ideas of uneducated people. From the most igno- 
rant you may extract something. Their crude rea- 
sonings, unsophisticated emotions, and even their 
prejudices and superstitions, will not seldom supply a 
link wanting from your own chain, or, if they do 
no more, should make us thankful for being better 
taught. 

There is danger, however, that the student may 
be distracted from his great purpose, by the various 
excitements with which the popular mind so often 
becomes vertiginous. "Semel insanivimus omnes," 
says the proverb ; but it might say " semper," with 
the verb in the present ; for men are ever prone to 
phrenzy, and, like drunkards, are not nice as to the 
character of a stimulant, if it be strong enough to 
intoxicate. Perhaps a new moral nostrum demands 
universal faith, as a wonder-working cure of evil, 
hidden until now from prophet, apostle and sage ; or 
some metaphysical Rosicrucian has invented a for- 
mula, by which all mysteries may be resolved into 



32 

"Easy lessons of one syllable;" or a political contest 
nearly divides the national vote, each party vehe- 
mently asserting that the other half of the citizen- 
ship are knaves or fools, who will, if successful, cer- 
tainly blow up the confederacy; or a damsel, put to 
sleep by the intensity of another's will, is straight- 
way " possessed of a spirit of divination," reads 
books out of the back of her head, makes excursions 
to the moon, and " brings her masters much gain by 
soothsaying ;" or the world is coming to an end ; or 
"the heavens shine supernaturally, and an ox has 
spoken." But why attempt to enumerate the proxi- 
mate causes of these epidemics ? If it were not one 
thing, it would be another. The disease is in human 
nature. It is difficult to avoid the infection, when, if 
we remain calm or aloof, we are denounced as cold, 
averse to progress, indifferent to the welfare of our 
race, irreligious, even impious; and meet at every 
corner enthusiasts, wild as Thyades, 

. . . ubi audito stimulant trieterica Baccho 
Orgia, nocturnusque vocat clamore Cithaeron. 

But do not suffer yourselves to be moved from 
your onward studies. History, as you know, is full 
of such instances. The Scripture, " given by inspi- 
ration of God," "that the man of God may be per- 
fect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works," has 
scarcely left any ethical secret to be discovered by 
the genius of our late philanthropy. The inner rows 



33 

of old European libraries are crowded with volumes 
of eager controversy, painfully written upon ques- 
tions, the very mention of which now excites pitiful 
laughter. Our beloved country has ten times multi- 
plied her strength, and promises more fairly than 
ever to survive the results of general elections. 
Mesmerism, or something very like it, is as old as 
Aristotle, if we may believe a fragment of Proclus.* 
The earth has crushed many Millers, and will crush 
many more, in her revolutions to attain her final 
destiny; while every page of Julius Obsequens de 
Prodigiis, will give the pattern of any alleged eccen- 
tricity from common laws. 

Neither have the vanity to think that you can do 
any thing to oppose or correct the prevailing mad- 
ness. Wait (and you need not wait long) till the 
paroxysm be over. You cannot put a straight jacket 
on a whole community, though they may send you 

* " That it is possible for the soul to depart from and enter into the body, 
is evident from him who, according to Clearchus, in his Treatise on Sleep, 
used a soul-attracting wand on a sleeping lad, and persuaded Aristotle that 
the soul may be separated from the body, and that it enters into the body 
and uses it as a lodging. For, striking the lad with the wand, he drew out, 
and, as it were, led his soul, for the purpose of evincing that the body was 
immoveable, when the soul was at a distance from it, and that it was pre- 
served uninjured; but the soul being led again into the body, by means of 
the wand, after its entrance, narrated every particular." The MS. Com- 
mentary of Proclus on the Tenth Book of the Republic, quoted by Taylor in 
his Fragments of Proclus. The translation does not seem precise or happy. 
Those who have Taylor's translation of the Republic at hand, may find the 
original among the notes. 

E 



34 

to Bedlam for the attempt. A wise man, when it 
storms, does not stay to chide the north wind, or 
reason with the hail, but quietly shuts himself up in 
his library. He will not think that the sky is falling, 
because the black electric clouds are thundering low 
and loud. He knows that, as the clear stars are 
shining on behind the tumults of our mundane at- 
mosphere, the great principles of truth are fixed, ra- 
diant and harmonious. Be this your faith and your 
practice; then, at the proper season, you may do 
good to the errorist, blushing over his follies, who 
would never forgive you, if he knew that you had 
been near when the fit was on him. It would have 
been well for him who gives this counsel, if he had 
always followed his own rule. Piscator ictus sapit. 

Still, there is such an intimate connexion between 
them, that our reason cannot act rightly, at least 
upon moral questions, except our hearts be culti- 
vated. We must learn from sympathy with our 
kind what our nature really is; and mark how our 
common passions, infirmities, and sinful tendencies 
develope themselves in circumstances differing from 
those in which we are placed. There is a little 
world in every man's breast, and his life is an 
abridged history of the race. We shall find much 
to shock us, and, therefore, to humble us; but also 
much to pity and love, which will make us more 
kind. We shall think worse of human nature in 
general, but become less uncharitable toward erring 



35 

individuals; and feel more strongly the obligation 
upon us to do all we can for the removal of evil, 
while we are driven to dependence upon the grace 
of God for success. The best teacher that ever 
taught, took upon Him our nature, that from a per- 
sonal sense of our infirmities in his human heart, 
which ached with all our sorrows, his divine wisdom 
might succour us according to our temptations. His 
example shows, that separateness from sinners is not 
seclusion from the world, and that, although we are to 
come out from it, we must mingle with our fellow- 
men to do them good. The rule of the Christian 
should be the method of the student. 

Scarcely less necessary to soundness of mind are 
good personal habits. Compounded as we are of 
matter and spirit, the soul energizing through animal 
organs, the mind is always hurtfully affected by an 
ill-condition of body, or greatly assisted by its well- 
ordered vigour. Care of his health is, therefore, a 
student's duty, not only because unfaithfulness to a 
charge so precious would be a degree of suicide, but 
because without it his intellectual faculties will be 
weakened and deranged. We hear every day of 
studious men, breaking down, as it is called, from 
the supposed effects of application to books ; and 
many are deterred from mental labour by fear of 
shortening their lives. If slender, they think them- 
selves too feeble for literary toil ; if robust, requiring 
more active employment. But the truth is, there are 



36 

very few instances of health destroyed by study it- 
self. Too scanty use of water, want of proper exer- 
cise, and excess of food, are the chief causes of those 
morbid affections which trouble zealous scholars. 
Different temperaments and constitutions demand 
different treatment, but every one should adapt his 
regimen to his circumstances. It is preposterous to 
spend eight or ten hours a day in a library, and live 
like a ploughman or a courtier. 

A student often complains of an unaccountable 
dulness, when, with every disposition to apply him- 
self, he can accomplish nothing, and his brain seems 
in a fog of confused ideas. Perhaps, on inquiring of 
his memory, he will be told, that for many days past 
he has washed only his face and hands, as if the 
show of cleanliness were the end of it. In such 
cases, of all remedies for his stupidity, water is the 
best, especially if he add to it a common compound 
of oil and alkali, and apply it briskly by an equally 
common, bristly implement. He will rise from his 
bath renovated, with a consciousness, next to a good 
conscience the most happy, of having done his per- 
son as much justice as the laundress does his linen, 
who plunges not only those parts which will be visi- 
ble, but the whole, in a capacious vessel,* nor ceases 
her exertions until the cleansing be thorough and 
complete. Every pore being thus unclogged, and 

* "Labrum si in balineo non est, (fac) ut sit." Cic. Ep. ad Terentiam, 20. 



37 

the action of the skin stimulated, the mind, which 
was sluggish for want of free breathing, will be 
cheerful and bright, the fancy active, the reason vi- 
gorous, and the judgment clear. He has gained time 
instead of losing it, by his lustration. The fountain 
Hippocrene was but twenty stadia from the residence 
of the muses.* 

Another serious error is the neglect of physical 
exercise in a proper degree and kind. A shrewd 
observer of his countrymen has remarked, that Ame- 
ricans work hard only their brains and their sto- 
machs, by which fact he accounts for the attenua- 
tion and angularity of form so frequent among us. 
It is difficult for the student to turn away from his 
books, when life is so short and science so vast; but 
it is poor economy to save a few hours by unfitting 
ourselves for future exertions. Many imagine that 
they do take pains in this respect, though, very often, 
after the consequences of former neglect have been 
fastened upon them; but, even then, the method of 
exercise is not adapted to the purpose. Sawing 
wood in a cellar, swinging heavy weights in a room, 
or dragging themselves through long aimless walks, 
seems rather to fatigue the limbs than agitate the 
whole system. Besides, the train of thought still 

* The reader will find this subject admirably treated in a volume on 
Baths, by an eminent medical authority— Doctor John Bell, of Philadelphia, 
whom the author has the honour to number among his kindest and most 
valued friends. 



38 

goes on, there is nothing in such employment to re- 
lieve the mind, and the student returns unrefreshed, 
even tired, less disposed than before to the task of 
" taking exercise." Exercise, to be of service, must 
be enjoyed, and to be enjoyed, must have some aim, 
no matter what, so that it be innocent, which will 
occupy our thoughts pleasantly. There is a most 
perniciously false public opinion among us, which 
looks upon athletic amusements as undignified for 
intellectual men, and almost wicked for clergymen. 
People would be shocked to see grave black-coated 
personages engaged, like school-boys, in a game of 
ball, or contending with each other in pitching 
quoits ; yet an occasional, even frequent, exercise of 
some such sort, would save many a promising young 
man from an early tomb, and prolong the usefulness 
of many prematurely old. " All work and no play," 
is as poor a maxim for the adult as the child; it 
makes the one dull as it does the other ; for we are 
but " children of a larger growth." Constant seden- 
tariness impairs the action of mind. Our thoughts 
become too abstract, unnatural, and often gloomy. 
The brain takes the tone of the stomach. Some 
starve it, thereby to obviate the necessity of exer- 
cise, and grow light-headed or visionary; others 
overload it, and grow confused, melancholic, or ill- 
tempered. It has been observed, that wars involving 
lasting mischief to great nations, have arisen from a 
ministerial despatch having been written during a fit 



39 

of indigestion. Dryden's favourite inspiration, when 
wishing to do better than usual, was a strong saline 
draught ; and a very eminent English statesman re- 
sorted to a similar mode of clearing his head. It is 
more than probable that hurtful theories are often 
promulged in books, whose authors labour under 
similar difficulties without taking means to remove 
them, which pleasant out-door exercise might do. If 
so, to abstain from it is a sin against ourselves and 
the world. 

Here is the secret of that sound, clear-headed 
vigour, for which Scotch intellect is so notable. 
The Oxford and Cambridge fellows and doctors, sel- 
dom stirring beyond the limits of their shaded quad- 
rangles, or moving but in the slow-paced dignity of 
gown and office, reason for the actual world, of 
which they know little and cannot sympathize with? 
from mediaeval precedents, or patristical authori- 
ties, and turn up their vellum-coloured noses at all 
who will not swear in the words of their masters. 
The German scholar, scarcely less confined to aca- 
demic limits, will most likely famish on a biscuit 
a-day, or gorge himself with sour-crout and black 
beer, though working two-thirds §f the twenty-four 
hours, the effects of which, among immense contri- 
butions to learning, are seen in thoughts drawn out 
to their utmost ductility, or in heavy lucubrations 
upon minute particulars. But the Scotch, even when 
gray with age, lays his volume or pen aside, gladly 



40 

to join in his ancestral game of golf, or to curl the 
stone upon the ice, or following the clear stream, to 
fill his creel with finny spoils; and returns to his 
books, sturdy in body and happy in spirit. 

It may not be so with feeble constitutions, but for 
those in health violent exercise before study is not 
advisable. The excitement is too high, and the hand 
trembles as its fingers close upon the pen. Still, oc- 
casions should be sought to put every muscle into 
full action. Among out-door recreations, none has 
been a greater favourite with studious men of Great 
Britain, because none is more suited to quiet habits, 
fondness for retirement, and love of nature, than an- 
gling, not in the sea, but in brooks or rivers, where 
the genus Salmo abounds. A catalogue of men illus- 
trious in every department of knowledge, who have 
refreshed themselves for farther useful toil by this 
" gentle art," as its admirers delight to call it, would 
be very long; and those who would charge them 
with trifling, perhaps worse, might, with some mo- 
desty, reconsider a censure which must include Izaak 
Walton, the pious biographer of pious men ; Dryden, 
Thomson, Wordsworth, and many more among the 
poets ; Paley, Wqllaston, and Nowell, among theo- 
logians ; Henry Mackenzie (the Man of Feeling), and 
Professor Wilson, the poet, scholar and essayist; 
Sir Humphrey Davy, author of Salmonia; Emmer- 
son the geometrician ; Rennie the zoologist ; Chan- 
trey the sculptor, and a host of others, who prove 



41 

that such a taste is not inconsistent with religion, 
genius, industry or usefulness to mankind. It has 
been remarked, that they, who avail themselves of 
this exercise moderately (for as one says, "make not 
a profession of a recreation, lest it should bring a 
cross wish on the same,"*) and are temperate, at- 
tain, generally, an unusual age. Henry Jenkins 
lived to a hundred and sixty-nine years, and angled 
when a score past his century; Walton died up- 
wards of ninety; No well at ninety -five, and Macken- 
zie at eighty-six. " Such frequent instances of lon- 
gevity among anglers," says a writer on the subject, 
"cannot have been from accident, or from their 
having originally stronger stamina than other mor- 
tals. Their pursuits by the side of running streams, 
whose motion imparts increased vitality to the air, 
their exercise regular without being violent, and that 
composure of mind so necessarjr to the health of the 
body, to which this amusement so materially contri- 
butes, must all have had an influence upon their phy- 
sical constitution, the effect of which is seen in the 
duration of their lives."f 

Studious men, who live in the country, are more 
advantageously situated ; but he, who is pent up in 



* Experienced Angler, by Col. Robert Venables (afterwards Commander 
in chief of the Parliamentary forces in Ulster). London, 1662. Chap. X. 
Obs. 23. 

t Scenes and Recollections of Fly Fishing, &c, by Stephen Oliver, the 
Younger, p. 25 

F 



42 

a town, vexed by the excitements of the day, and 
driven, in spite of himself, to late and irregular 
hours, could get profit every way, if at times he 
would seek the purer air, free from the city's smoke, 
and with his rod as a staff, climb the hills, and ply 
his quiet art in the brooks that wash the mountain 
side, or wander through the green valleys, shaded by 
the willow and the tasselled alder : " Atte the leest," 
says the Lady Juliana Berners, "he hath his holsome 
walke and mery at his ease; a swete ayre of the 
swete savoure of the meede floures, that makyth 
hym hungry. He heereth the melodyous armony of 
fowles. He seeth the yonge swannes, heerons, duckes, 
cotes, and many other fowles, wyth theyr brodes. 
And yf he take fysshe ; surely, thenne, is there noo 
man merier than he is in his spyryte."* Nor should 
he forget the best of books in his pocket, and a few 
well-chosen jewels of truth to give away, as he en- 
joys the simple fare of some upland cottage, or chats 
with the secluded inmates during the soft twilight, 
before he asks a blessing upon the household for the 

* 2Tl)e STtcatjJse of jFflssljgnse tojtl) att Unfile, (attributed, though erro- 
neously, to Dame Julian de Berners, Prioress of Sopewell Nunnery in Here- 
fordshire,) first printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the Boke of St. Albans, 
1496, forty-four years before the first classic (Tully's Epistles) was printed at 
Oxford. It was from this treatise that Izaak Walton took the hint and plan 
for his well known "Complete Angler," a hundred and fifty years later; 
and, as the editor of Pickering's edition says, " In piety and virtue; in the 
inculcation of morality ; in an ardent love for the art, and still more in that 
placid and Christian spirit for which the amiable Walton was so conspicuous, 
the early writer was scarcely his inferior." 



43 

night. After a few days of such communion, sibi 
et Deo, among the pleasant works of his Maker, and 
a grateful sense of rustic hospitality, he will go home 
a more healthy man in mind, body and heart. This 
advice is given soberly, earnestly and conscientiously, 
as the fruit of experience. If any should follow it, 
and be afterwards chided for wasting time by those 
who prefer dyspepsia to common sense, let no answer 
be given. A sour stomach, and, its miserable accom- 
paniment, a sour temper, are their own punishment. 

No exercise, however, that a student can use, will 
counteract the effects of much animal food. An 
error of the people in this country, more than in any 
other civilized part of the globe, is being too carni- 
vorous. Other persons may decide for themselves 
as they choose, but we should be content with a sim- 
ple diet, nutritious, yet as little stimulating as possi- 
ble. The command to Peter, " Kill and eat," is a 
sufficient refutation of those pretenders to be wise 
above what is written, who, because their own gas- 
tric functions are as weak as their brains, would re- 
duce all men to bran bread and slops; but meat more 
than once a day should not pass a student's lips, and 
not much then. According to modern notions, the 
end of temperance is to keep people from getting 
drunk ; the apostle Paul thought it to be, " keeping 
the body under ;" but what right has he, who eats 
heartily of meat at breakfast, repeats the enormity 
at dinner, and again at supper, to expect that his 



44 

humours will not be thick, his brain muddy, his pas- 
sions insurgent, and his ideas gross; especially, if he 
sit at his desk for many hours? This indulgence of 
appetite is, in nine cases out of ten, at the bottom 
of the student's brain fever or disordered digestion. 
Many commence their studies when past early youth, 
after having practised some trade or active calling, 
and, anxious to overtake time, they devote them- 
selves with unremitting zeal to their books, but do 
not change their habits at table. Nay, not aware 
that, from sympathy of the stomach with the brain, 
mental industry produces a morbid appetite, they eat 
with increased voracity. Soon their colour grows 
sallow, their shoulders stoop from lassitude, they be- 
come emaciated and sad, make some sickly efforts to 
do good, and then creep into an early grave. "Poor 
fellow !" exclaim the friendly mourners, " he died a 
victim of studious zeal." No such thing! Let the 
epitaph-maker chisel upon the stone, for the warning 
of others, "Died of too much meat." 

Nature teaches us better. All summer long she 
gives us a succession of fresh fruits and vegetables, 
leaving for our winter's store others which last us till 
summer comes again. The charter to Noah, the 
wisdom of which we may not doubt, did include ani- 
mal food ; but we should remember that the diet of 
man in Paradise and purity, was wholly vegetable. 

This also, if you will take it, is the advice of one 
who has been himself, for years, a close student, at 



45 

times an excessive student, and what is most trying 
of all, a night student; yet, with a constitution much 
better fitted to sling a sledge or follow a plough, he 
has never experienced any serious inconvenience, 
fairly attributable to study; which, he thinks, is owing 
to a very simple and moderate, but not whimsically 
abstemious, diet, particularly as to the use of animal 
food. 

Gentlemen, much more might be said in vindica- 
tion of our pursuits, but it would be unfair to tax 
your courteous patience any farther. Ours is indeed 
a noble calling. All antiquity speaks to us ; let us 
speak to all posterity. What we have received from 
God, it would impoverish us to withhold, but will en- 
rich us to impart. Let it be our constant care to 
cultivate the best wisdom, that, as we receive light 
from on high, we may, in our turn, shed the true 
light upon the world around us. In a little while, 
the fashions, the riches, the empty pleasures, and the 
tinsel honours of this life, will have passed away. 
We can carry with us into eternity nothing, of 
which the soul is not the treasury. We shall never 
all meet together again in this world; but we shall 
meet before the Judgment. Then may each of us be 
able to present, through the Intercessor, something 
done by His grace, worthy of our immortal powers, 
useful to our fellow-men, and glorifying to our Maker! 
God bless you ! 




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